DEFENCEMinister Ismail Sabri Yaakob has announced new standard operating procedure (SOP) in prisons and detention centres to try to prevent Covid-19 infecting the prison population and staff.

It is yet another SOP.

Why not act under the Prisons Act? Section 3 of the Act empowers the home minister to “declare any house, building, enclosure or place, or any part thereof, to be a prison for the purposes of the Act for the imprisonment or detention of persons lawfully in custody.”

In addition, Section 8(1)(b) of the Act provides that wherever there is an outbreak within a prison of a disease which renders it necessary to provide for the temporary shelter and safe custody of any prisoner, the commissioner general of prisons may, with the approval of the home minister, direct that prisoners be put in the shelter and safe custody of temporary prisons. A temporary prison shall be a prison for the purposes of the Act.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the home minister has, at least, twice exercised his powers under Section 3 of the Act. The first was in April when he declared seven places as temporary prisons under section 8 of the Act, namely Malaysia Prison College, Kajang, Prison Officer Training Centre, Taiping, Malaysia Correctional Institute, Malacca, Malaysia Correctional Academy, Langkawi, Prison Officer Training Centre, Kota Kinabalu, Taman Wira Hall, Sandakan Prison and Ehsan Hall, Tawau Prison.

The second was in June when the minister declared the Correctional Centre Muar, Johor to be a prison for the purposes of the Act.

It looks like the home minister will have to exercise his powers yet again to declare a place nearby the Alor Setar prison as a prison or temporary prison.

The Singapore experience of Covid-19 outbreak in crowded dorms that were homes to more than 300,000 low-wage foreign workers from countries like India and Bangladesh, who mainly work in industries like construction and manufacturing – perfect conditions for the virus to spread – informs us that healthy prisoners will have to be taken out to other prisons. Infected prisoners will have to be isolated and treated.

The success of Singapore’s measures is now in the numbers – only 4 new local cases, all of which reside in dorms.

So let’s hear it from the home minister. – October 8, 2020.

* Hafiz Hassan reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.